Big guns step up

27 March 2014

Things got 'Serious' this month as
global insurer Allianz stepped up to the ABS plate. Premextra
reports on this and all the latest stories from the personal injury
market.

There were 250 Alternative Business Structure licences issued by
the Solicitors Regulation Authority at the time of writing, however
with the news that global insurer Allianz has joined the party
alongside rival Direct Line, it's clear that the ABS system is
beginning to generate business plans and partnerships that are
increasingly interesting to insurers.

Allianz's offering will be branded ALP Law, and has been described
as providing legal advice and support to all the insurers' direct
motor policyholders who suffer a non-fault personal injury. The
service has been launched in partnership with catastrophic PI
specialists Serious Law.

Speaking of big guns, they don't come much larger than Clyde &
Co, which has chosen Manchester to launch a school leavers'
apprenticeship programme. The firm will hire five apprentices this
year, and has given a start date of October 2014. Through the
18-month programme, apprentices will focus on catastrophic injury,
disease and fraud work, combining formal study with on-the-job
learning.

One thing these willing young professionals will certainly not be
doing is sending nuisance texts or calls, after the Information
Commissioner's Office reported that a record number of complaints
had been made linked to accident claims. The ICO said over 1600
complaints were received during the last three months of 2013 and
that personal injury firms were being warned they could face fines
if they obtain work in this fashion.

Old fashioned was one of the labels hung on current laws
surrounding psychiatric injury, after APIL said the legislation
needed reform at a recent Parliamentary reception. APIL president
Matthew Stockwell said there had never been a better time for
reform as the law is "old fashioned, inflexible and unfair".
Matthew said that unfortunately the law had been shaped against the
backdrop of the Hillsborough Disaster which will mark its
25th anniversary next month, and that attitude to
psychiatric injury had fundamentally changed, with the falling away
of concepts such as "the stiff upper lip" since the tragedy of
April 1989.